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A few weeks ago I asked about some movies and nonfiction film concerning that war. (Thanks once again for the links and information, gentlemen). The following link leads to a very personal and by no means complete list of Great War pictures (a few later than this site's perview). It's certainly handy, so I thought I might share it. The writer doesn't include the compilation World War 1 Films of the Silent Era. Wooden Crosses is not there either, but it may have been released on DVD after the list was made. The page is from The Great War Society's website, which has some motion picture related information.

http://www.worldwar1.com/bier002.htm

Any additions to the viewing list or comments about related movies would be appreciated.

By the way, the encyclopedic site www.firstworldwar.com also has a set of posters, music selections and film clips. Good overview of the time.

I read somewhere that a high percentage of the newsreel footage we see of the Western Front isn't actuality footage at all, but material that was either staged for the cameras, or simply pulled from silent dramas produced much later.

After watching the excellent BBC series The First World War recently (and the even better CBS News series from the 1960s), I'm inclined to think there's some truth to that.

Documentaries are created by combing through tons of stock footage, and from what I've seen, the stock footage libraries don't say (and probably don't know) exactly where their material originated. It's just there, take it or leave it.

Most of the war footage I've seen feels very legitimate (bored soldiers looking at the camera, the cameraman's shadow in the foreground, etc.). But occasionally you see spectacular battle scenes in which the camera's up on high ground somehow, and panning smoothly... clips like those make me wonder.

Chris Snowden wrote: Most of the war footage I've seen feels very legitimate (bored soldiers looking at the camera, the cameraman's shadow in the foreground, etc.). But occasionally you see spectacular battle scenes in which the camera's up on high ground somehow, and panning smoothly... clips like those make me wonder.

I believe I've previously mentioned seeing an A&E (??-can't remember where) documentary on the American Civil War (not the Burns doc) which used footage from Keaton's The General.

The Bioscope has some excellent writing on WWI films, at:
http://bioscopic.wordpress.com/category/war/

Fred

I didn't realise the OP was about fiction films dealing with WW1 - there were dozens made inter-war, about various aspects of the Great War, and almost a sub-genre of WW1-era spy stories made in the run up to WW2 - the most famous being Hitchcocks' The 39 Steps, but also including his Secret Agent, Powell and Pressburger's The Spy In Black, Victor Savile's I Was A Spy......a way round the queasiness of the censors to have anti-German stories set contemporaneously, before WW2 broke out. The alternative was to have 'Unnamed Foreign Powers' as the enemy, as in The Lady Vanishes.

For my money, the best World War I films that I've seen are Chaplin's Shoulder Arms, Vidor's The Big Parade, and Kubrick's Paths of Glory.

There's a recent book on WW1 cinema, too:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... R&v=glance

The War The West and The Wilderness is required reading, I'm told, too.

My interest in this period comes from a set of maps, papers, and photographs I inherited from a great uncle who fought in WW1. We have pictures he took with a Brownie Kodak camera, and some postcards and picture sets he bought while he served in France. My mother still has the camera. I'm scanning in the materials to preserve them in digital form. I have some of his materials from after the war, too. (I'm trying find out what model year his navy blue Studebaker is from...!) All sorts of interesting stuff.

Thanks everybody for the posts and the insights.

Penfold wrote:I didn't realise the OP was about fiction films dealing with WW1 - there were dozens made inter-war, about various aspects of the Great War, and almost a sub-genre of WW1-era spy stories made in the run up to WW2 - the most famous being Hitchcocks' The 39 Steps, but also including his Secret Agent, Powell and Pressburger's The Spy In Black, Victor Savile's I Was A Spy......a way round the queasiness of the censors to have anti-German stories set contemporaneously, before WW2 broke out. The alternative was to have 'Unnamed Foreign Powers' as the enemy, as in The Lady Vanishes.

Thanks for the list. A old friend is a rabid spy fiction buff, and tells me Reilly Ace of Spies, set during the WW1 period, is about the best of the TV series.

Since Bruce is pushing "Shoulder's Arms" as an acurate depiction of the horror and insanity that evolved from WWI then one must also visit "Pack Up Your Troubles" - (1932) in which we learn of the misery of cooties and involuntary volunteering which could end up in a tank too small for two.

Then there is the nimble soldier from "All Night Long" - (1924) who demonstates for us the agility our fighting forces had in evading enemy shells while perched atop a wooden pole. "The Great Dictator" - (1940) illustrated the superiority of our Flying Aces who had the expertise of battling the German Red Baron's by their ability to combat their foes by flying upside down. "Doughboys" - (1930) cites the danger of marching into muddy French burgs while wearing clean togs. And finally, "High C's" - (1930) reminds us all that the overlying emphasis of this first global conflict was so that participants from the other side could join us in a conciliatory gesture and become our bass-tenor in a barbershop quartet.

Gary J.

George Kincaid wrote:
Thanks for the list. A old friend is a rabid spy fiction buff, and tells me Reilly Ace of Spies, set during the WW1 period, is about the best of the TV series.

Another good television series regarding WWI (although not spy-related) was Testament of Youth, based on Vera Brittain's heartbreaking memoir. I don't know if ToY is yet available on dvd. There is a wealth of WWI literature, of course, and a whole subgenre of poetry. I recommend Robert Graves, Siegfried Sassoon, and definitely Wilfred Owen.

Fred

Yes, The War, The West, and the Wilderness is a great book on the war, focusing on both factual and fictional films. Not everyone will like this book, since if focuses on three specific genres though.

Most of the WWI films made during the war were hopeless propaganda that was outdated the day the armistice was signed. Chaplin deserves credit for making a great spoof of the war, during the war, that is still a classic.

People can still enjoy The Big Parade or Wings or All Quiet on the Western Front today because they are timeless classics. But the 1917-1918 propaganda films are mostly curios.

And I should have included All Quiet on the Western Front in my favorites above...

A recent British TV show "My Boy Jack" is about Rudyard Kipling's son in World War 1. It deals with the homefront--definitely recommended, but I don't want to give too much away. Amazon.com has copies for sale.

Frederica wrote:There is a wealth of WWI literature, of course, and a whole subgenre of poetry. I recommend Robert Graves, Siegfried Sassoon, and definitely Wilfred Owen.

Far less dignified and acclaimed than Owen's works (but a lot more fun to read) are the 1930s pulp novels about G-8 and His Battle Aces by Robert J. Hogan.

G-8 was an American flyer and spy, who confronted such dangers as the Vampire Staffel, defrosted Viking warriors, giant hawks bigger than blimps, enemy aces who were half-human and half-ape (as well as aces who were half-human and half-panther), an invincible squadron of corpses, and many other perils created by the German High Command and the twisted genius of the Stroheimian Herr Doktor Krueger.

Get 'em while they're hot:
http://www.adventurehouse.com/shopping/ ... pt_17.html

George Kincaid wrote:A recent British TV show "My Boy Jack" is about Rudyard Kipling's son in World War 1. It deals with the homefront--definitely recommended, but I don't want to give too much away. Amazon.com has copies for sale.

Let me guess--he dies in the end. Hey, it's a safe bet.

Peter Weir's Gallipoli is also worth your time, but like most WWI films it's not a laff-riot. Alan Moorehead's detailed 1956 history of the Battle of Gallipoli is even less funny. Gawdallmighty.

Fred

silentfilm wrote:
And I should have included All Quiet on the Western Front in my favorites above...

Journey's End is also excellent, although I don't know if it's readily available. It was a favorite of a previous Cinecon and certainly the best Colin Clive performance I've seen to date. It's stagy because it's based on a play, but that only enhances the sense of claustrophobia.

Fred

Frederica wrote:

George Kincaid wrote:A recent British TV show "My Boy Jack" is about Rudyard Kipling's son in World War 1. It deals with the homefront--definitely recommended, but I don't want to give too much away. Amazon.com has copies for sale.

Let me guess--he dies in the end. Hey, it's a safe bet.

Peter Weir's Gallipoli is also worth your time, but like most WWI films it's not a laff-riot. Alan Moorehead's detailed 1956 history of the Battle of Gallipoli is even less funny. Gawdallmighty.

Fred

Oh, I hadn't thought of that--true, Jack doesn't come home. The story is about how Kipling and his wife deal with losing their son. I didn't want to describe that in too much detail.

Lawrence of Arabia is certainly worth the time, and deals with a part of the war not often presented in movies.

George Kincaid wrote:
Oh, I hadn't thought of that--true, Jack doesn't come home. The story is about how Kipling and his wife deal with losing their son. I didn't want to describe that in too much detail.

It's on my Netflix queue.

Lawrence of Arabia is certainly worth the time, and deals with a part of the war not often presented in movies.

In a "print the legend" sort of way, although fabulous ensembles for both Peter O'Toole and Omar Shariff.

Fred

As a reality check, since most WWI aerial films are actually cavalry films with winged objects, suggested reading would be Sagittarius Rising and Wind in the Wires, both written without the usual gung-ho, both by real flyers from the Great War.

Frederica wrote:

silentfilm wrote:
And I should have included All Quiet on the Western Front in my favorites above...

Journey's End is also excellent, although I don't know if it's readily available. It was a favorite of a previous Cinecon and certainly the best Colin Clive performance I've seen to date. It's stagy because it's based on a play, but that only enhances the sense of claustrophobia.

Fred

It's still a very powerful play - it was revived in London's West End about four years back. And influential; Dawn Patrol is Journey's End with planes, as is a mid 70's film called Aces High, with Malcolm McDowell. There was also a German-language remake of Journey's End, soon after the original film; strangely, perhaps, still set in a British dugout. Once you get used to the idea of British WW1 officers clicking heels in salute, it may even be a better version, largely due to the lead performance of Conrad Veidt as Stanhope (Colin Clive's role) which is positively incandescent. AFAIK this version isn't available either, but then I haven't trawled through Amazon.de for it...yet. In an ideal world, this would be a double DVD release, along the lines of the Murder!/Mary or Sound/Silent Blackmail German-released DVD packages...

Penfold wrote: It's still a very powerful play - it was revived in London's West End about four years back. And influential; Dawn Patrol is Journey's End with planes, as is a mid 70's film called Aces High, with Malcolm McDowell. There was also a German-language remake of Journey's End, soon after the original film; strangely, perhaps, still set in a British dugout. Once you get used to the idea of British WW1 officers clicking heels in salute, it may even be a better version, largely due to the lead performance of Conrad Veidt as Stanhope (Colin Clive's role) which is positively incandescent. AFAIK this version isn't available either, but then I haven't trawled through Amazon.de for it...yet. In an ideal world, this would be a double DVD release, along the lines of the Murder!/Mary or Sound/Silent Blackmail German-released DVD packages...

Wow, I'd like to see that version...what a great double dvd that would make. Clive is such a nervous, twitchy performer that he's often just plain irritating, but it sure worked for Journey's End, and he gave it everything he had. I thought JE was at least as good as All Quiet on the Western Front , (a German book filmed by Americans, so turnabout's fair play, I guess!)

1928/1929 was an interesting year for WWI memoirs, Robert Graves published Goodbye to all That, still the most devastating personal description of PTSD I've ever read, in 1929. Then Vera Brittain published Testament of Youth in 1933. I guess it took ten years for artists to come to grips with what had happened and to translate that into public art. Some of them never got over it. Graves seems to have dealt with it in some form for the rest of his life. And T.E. Lawrence was a mess.

Fred

Frederica wrote:

Penfold wrote: It's still a very powerful play - it was revived in London's West End about four years back. And influential; Dawn Patrol is Journey's End with planes, as is a mid 70's film called Aces High, with Malcolm McDowell. There was also a German-language remake of Journey's End, soon after the original film; strangely, perhaps, still set in a British dugout. Once you get used to the idea of British WW1 officers clicking heels in salute, it may even be a better version, largely due to the lead performance of Conrad Veidt as Stanhope (Colin Clive's role) which is positively incandescent. AFAIK this version isn't available either, but then I haven't trawled through Amazon.de for it...yet. In an ideal world, this would be a double DVD release, along the lines of the Murder!/Mary or Sound/Silent Blackmail German-released DVD packages...

Wow, I'd like to see that version...what a great double dvd that would make. Clive is such a nervous, twitchy performer that he's often just plain irritating, but it sure worked for Journey's End, and he gave it everything he had.

Fred

I'd like to see *any* version of Journey's End!

Much as I'd like to see *any* Veidt performance, I would be even more interested in pairing our hypothetical DVD release with Whale's The Road Back (which I have also not seen) - especially if one could do a photo-reconstruction to give an idea of what Whale originally intended.

And for the record - there was a highly successful Broadway revival of the Journey's End play two or three years back (a transfer from London?)

Didn't get to see that, either.

Penfold wrote:

Frederica wrote:

silentfilm wrote:
And I should have included All Quiet on the Western Front in my favorites above...

Journey's End is also excellent, although I don't know if it's readily available. It was a favorite of a previous Cinecon and certainly the best Colin Clive performance I've seen to date. It's stagy because it's based on a play, but that only enhances the sense of claustrophobia.

Fred

It's still a very powerful play - it was revived in London's West End about four years back. And influential; Dawn Patrol is Journey's End with planes, as is a mid 70's film called Aces High, with Malcolm McDowell. There was also a German-language remake of Journey's End, soon after the original film; strangely, perhaps, still set in a British dugout. Once you get used to the idea of British WW1 officers clicking heels in salute, it may even be a better version, largely due to the lead performance of Conrad Veidt as Stanhope (Colin Clive's role) which is positively incandescent. AFAIK this version isn't available either, but then I haven't trawled through Amazon.de for it...yet. In an ideal world, this would be a double DVD release, along the lines of the Murder!/Mary or Sound/Silent Blackmail German-released DVD packages...

Interesting you should bring up Aces High - part of the screenplay was also based on Sagittarius Rising, which was written by Cecil Lewis, who BTW won an Oscar, along with G Bernard Shaw, for writing the scenario for the Leslie Howard/Wendy Hiller Pygmalion.

The Last Command in part is set during World War I. A personal favorite; man, what a well made picture. Ford's Four Sons is set during that time.

Maybe indirectly, but the Russian Revolution movies like Reds and Dr. Zhivago would count. Bill Murray made a watchable movie in the '80s, The Razor's Edge, about World War 1. (I haven't read the novel.)

I saw the German Journey's End, Die Andere Seite, at a British Silent Film Weekend, a few years back, dedicated to films of WW1 - I could dig out the program notes if you want a further list of WW1, mainly British, mainly silents, mainly otherwise unavailable........

Well, thank you. Yes, I could add the titles to my list. I'd know about them, should they become available here.

Should anybody like the list I've drawn up from the suggestions posted here and in other groups, let me know.

By the way, did anybody mention Hell's Angels? (The Howard Hughes movie!)

Well, as long as we are inventorying World War I films, i'll again bring up "She Goes to War," which is certainly among the more bizarre of the bunch. But there are tons more. Offhand i can think of are War Nurse with Anita Page yet again as the pregnant friend of the heroine. THere are all the versions of A Farewell to Arms. There are all the Quirt and Flagg films. Harry Langdon's Soldier Man. Just tons.

greta

I should call this list A Set of Recommended Films about the First World War, something like that. That's why I was gathering opinions--there are so many movies about that war.

I hope in the midst of my upcoming move to get this list compiled. Might serve as a good break on occassion.

Thank you.

George, get Reel America and World War I by Craig W. Campbell. It's from McFarland so it is expensive new, but I got mine at a used bookstore.

It's kind of a dry book (i.e. not really engrossing), but half of the book is devoted to a listing of every film released in the USA that dealt with World War I. This includes serial, cartoons, almost any genre.

There we go! Thanks, Bruce. I'd imagine Amazon Marketplace and alibris, those places should have a good copy. There's always interlibrary loan, too. McFarland published Buck Rainey's The Strong Silent Type about silent westerns, and several others I've seen and read.

I'll throw in some lesser-known efforts:

A somewhat forgotten, hard-to-find masterpiece is Francesco Rosi's alpine front drama UOMINI CONTRO (US-title: Many Wars Ago, 1970), which is very close to PATHS OF GLORY in theme and "message", but overall beats even Kubrick in my opinion. It features the great Alain Cuny and Gian Maria Volonté. This movie is really amazing, don't miss it, if you get the chance.

Other interesting movies about the rarely covered Italian-Austrian side of the war are BERGE IN FLAMMEN (Mountains on Fire, 1931) directed by and starring Luis Trenker (himself a veteran) and the Austrian production STANDSCHÜTZE BRUGGLER (1936), both available on DVD. For mere curiosity you might want to check out the wartime propaganda comedy MACISTE ALPINO (1916) with Bartolomeo Pagano. I have seen it on screen but I doubt it is available on DVD.

Also available is the early talkie NIEMANDSLAND (No Man's Land, 1931), a strange, somewhat preachy german pacifist film by Victor Trivas. Several lost soldiers, a Russian Jew, an African-American, an Englishman, a Frenchman, a German (famous communist singer Ernst Busch, who also worked with Pabst) meet between the trenches and decide to end the war by their own. Each of them speaks in his native language.

The Nazis tried to counter Pabst's WESTFRONT 1918 and ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT with STOSSTRUPP 1917, released in 1934 and directed by NS-card-carrying writer Hans Zöberlein. A restored version of this has been released in Germany last year. It has little artistic qualities though and is of mere historical interest.

The talkie remake of Abel Gance's J'ACCUSE (1938) is definitely worth checking out. It features powerful sound montages to catch the horrible noise of combat, and the famous final scene with the marching dead soldiers is even more striking, as Gance used some real WWI-veterans, some of them so hideously mutilated (such as can also be seen in Franju's short HÔTEL DES INVALIDES) they make Lon Chaney look like Mary Poppins.

Literature: one of the most gripping descriptions of the war of the trenches is Ernst Jünger's classic STORM OF STEEL (first published in 1920, later editions were heavily revised), which might not be so well known in the english-speaking world. A rare, poetic book about the war experience is IN PARENTHESIS (1937) by Welsh poet and graphic artist DAVID JONES.

Most of these movies are decidedly anti-War. A very few argued it was all worth it. The best of this minority is the semi-talkie/semi silent NOAH'S ARK. I recommend it.